


And so I became her’s

by Rain_wander



Category: RWBY
Genre: Child Abuse, F/F, Human Trafficking, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-03
Updated: 2015-07-03
Packaged: 2018-04-07 10:48:59
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,659
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4260453
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rain_wander/pseuds/Rain_wander
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I don’t like to think about how I got here, out on the street and in the cold. Thinking about it doesn’t help, it never has. All that helps is keeping my head clear and focused on how I’m going to live another day.</p>
            </blockquote>





	And so I became her’s

**Author's Note:**

> I don't really write from RWBY often but these two struck me and this happened.

I don’t like to think about how I got here, out on the street and in the cold. Thinking about it doesn’t help, it never has. All that helps is keeping my head clear and focused on how I’m going to live another day.

The other street kids are starting to crawl out of the allies and dumpsters and I thank what ever god there might be for my small size. I’m shorter than most of the other street kids, so I can fit and weave through small crevices and nooks that no one else can. Well, except for the younger ones, but they get taken away or go missing soon after they show up. You’re lucky if some adult or bigger kid doesn’t grab you and take you off somewhere to use you for their dirty work. Its dog eat dog out here, and if you’re, small you’re food.

Since I’m small, I need to be fast, to be smart, and I am. I’ve lived on the street for years and I know how to get around, get by and stay safe.

Running through the street, it’s easy to bump people or slip past. No one sees or feels me lifting the lien from them. The sky is darker today, and it looks like is going to rain. I can even feel a chill in the wind and I have to bite my lip to keep down the shivers. I can’t remember what it feels like to wear something soft and warm.

I’m soaked and it’s cold. There are a few other kids trying to hid in the same alley as I am, but not with me. Theres a small foot bridge that runs over a shallow drainage ditch in this alley to keep the water level in the streets low and carry it into the sewers. I’m small enough to fit under the footbridge and the water doesn’t bother me. I’m already wet after all, so at least here I’m hidden and safe.

A large man I’ve seen around here few times walks into the alley. I can see him from where I am, but thankfully he can’t see me. He’s one of the adults that looks for the street kids and takes us away to do horrible things. They take the girls more then boys. He grabs a girl I recognize but don’t know the name of. I think she’s my age, and I give her half my pick pockets a lot of the time. Shes not cut out for this life, and part of me wants to help. But now he’s grabbing her and she tries to scream but his hand is over her mouth. There’s a twisting knot in my stomach, and this time it’s not from my hunger. He turns and I can’t see much of what he’s doing to her until she goes limp and he carries her away. Theres nothing I could do. If I had made even a sound I would’ve been taken too. Besides, I’m small, hungry, and scared.

Months later, things are worse. More girls are going missing. I’ve started trying to band the girls together, but it’s not working. The men have started showing up with guns. One night, another rainy one, I’d decided I’d had enough. The big guy shows up with a few other guys, I’m guessing to round up the last of us, and they have guns and knives on them. We run, but they manage to grab a few of the girls. Anger starts to boil up inside of me.

There are only two others left besides myself backed against a fence. The men threaten and taunt us. I can’t take it anymore. With speed and blood lust I didn’t think I had in me, I rush forward and they open fire. There are some loud bangs from the gunfire and my left bicep screams in agony. I know I’m hit, but adrenaline and anger push me forward, through the pain and fear. I’m smaller, I’m faster. The burning agony in my arm joins the pain and ache of my empty stomach and sore muscles in the back of my mind. Twisting around them so they can’t get me, can’t hit me, I lift a knife from one of the men’s belts. I twist it back in my hand, and for a moment the image of a praying mantis flashes in my mind. The knife tastes blood and I pull the man backwards so he matches my height so the bullets hit him instead of me. I’m smiling. I won’t be the next girl shot up on dust knows what, walking the streets looking for her next customer. I drop the dead weight and I’m a green blur again. The knife finds their ribs, stomachs, and backs. The ones who can, run. I tuck the knife away in my belt and for a second I catch a glimpse of a woman, a woman I swear shouldn’t exist. She’s too much like the models in the ads all over town, too perfect and elegant. She doesn’t belong here, and she seems like a queen walking along the slop of the pigs on a farm at the edge of her kingdom when she turns around to leave.

There was a fire in her eyes that won’t leave me.

A year or so later, I’ve gotten a sort of reputation with two knives to back me up. There’s a sort of turf war coming, but it’s not like things have gotten any better. Most of the time I go hungry and, I’ve been arrested five times. The cops try to send me to homes, but I run away. Nothing feels right, nothing feels like home. The families they send me to are worse than the streets. Drunks and drug addicts playing at being mothers and fathers.

On the streets I know I’m strong, I know I’m fast, carpet can’t catch my feet, and I don’t need to scramble when I need to hide. I know the alleys, the corners and cracks, the junkies and drunks and where they set up shop. I know the back doors and dumpsters, I know the sewers and what tunnels are safe and what tunnels will be your tomb.

And the entire time, ever since that day when I first picked up a knife and fought back, I see her fire, the fire that was in her eyes. It’s inside me, burning and pushing me forward, helping me survive. I’ve dreamt about that woman every night since I first laid eyes on her and I swear that fire that was in her eyes is burning in my chest hotter and hotter every time.

One day, things changed forever.

It’s a dark cold evening, and the sky reminded me of the day I had first seen her, the woman with the fire in her eyes. The only difference was that it wasn’t raining this time. By now it had been years since I had seen her, but her face has never left my mind, not for a second. It’s like she’s always there, in the back of my head. Pushing me, making me stronger, even when I had no food or water. She was my soul’s nourishment, and I still don’t understand how.

I was asleep under a bridge, a full sized one this time, when the men had snuck under the bridge and jumped me. Hands already on the handles of my knives, I awoke fighting. One grabbed me but in seconds I had liberated him of most of his fingers and one of his ears. Dodging someone else, I spun and threw my knife into the largest man’s eye. The others glanced behind me, then rushed off in terror. I turned quickly and threw my last knife before I even had the chance to see who it was that terrified the men.

It was her. The woman with the fire in her eyes, just standing there, balancing my knife on her finger tip as if she had picked up a curious trinket from a shop instead of catching it in mid air.

She was everything I had ever read about in poems and heard in songs. Every rhythmic description of a sunset, crashing waves, purifying fires, erupting volcanoes, summer, peaceful afternoons, or emotions that words can’t seem to describe. She was all of that and so much more.

“Impressive.”

She speaks and I falter. At that time in my life I had only ever had sweets once. A piece of old melted chocolate. Her voice reminds me of how I thought chocolate should taste.

“I’ve seen you before. Have you been watching me?”

My voice cracked and talking to her feels like I’m trying to speak to the very heat that hangs in the air on a mid summer’s afternoon.

“Observant as well.”

I try not to lick my lips when she speaks and it’s very, very hard. She must notice how I’m staring at her because she let’s out a low short giggle and my knees give way.

“It’s… been a long time since I’ve eaten more than a stale piece of bread.”

It’s true, but we both know that’s not why I was shaking, on my knees under that bridge.

She walks towards me and helps me up. She’s so warm that for a moment I had forgotten what the cold had ever felt like. She burns like the embers in fires and I realized that if she was the fire that would one day consume me and turn me back to the dust from whence I came, that I would gladly be her tinder.

“My name is Cinder Fall.”

“E-emerald.”

She smiles and I swear at that moment I was born again.

“I need you for something very important, but first we’ll need you in top form.”

And so I became her’s, as I will be forever.


End file.
